


A Second Chance

by animorph516



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Allomancy, Blood, Brandon Sanderson, Character Turned Into Vampire, Cosmere, Death, F/F, Gore, Military, Mistborn, had a thought and this came out of it, idk wtf i'm doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animorph516/pseuds/animorph516
Summary: World War III has come to the Silas Military Academy. Enemy at the gates, our heroes must defend each other with every advantage they've got. A mysterious stranger comes offering incredible power but at a great cost. Make a choice.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My brain spit this out and my fingers did their best.
> 
> As always, I refuse to accept human!carm.

Laura Hollis lay dying in her lover's arms.

Perry was already gone. LaFontaine threw themselves into the midst of a squad of tanks, using some variant of nitro to take them out in an act of furious self-sacrifice.  
Danny was missing. Kirsch missing a foot. JP had lost control of his new body. He'd ravaged and rampaged until finally beheaded by a .50BMG at velocity. Beheaded isn't quite accurate. It implies there was a head, separated from the stump neck it had long stood upon. William's old noggin no longer existed in one piece.

Comms down. All over the area, nobody can get through. Why here? Austria was no threat. Silas had switched to a wartime footing 2 months before; the new Dean imploring her students to take up arms. After having worked in the Pit for months, those that remained were hard and ready to fight.

 

* * *

 

Hoid walked through the carnage, unaffected. The Shattering of Adonalsium had inured him to the sight of inhuman suffering quite nicely. His arrow pointed face and white hair stood out. They lacked the grime of the last months attrition and grueling day-to-day survival had deposited on the remainder of the populace. His travels had taken him many strange places, but this was quite unusual. Best he could tell, a Shard (Dominion? It fit the profile) had given up its own host in favor of a new one. The former Dean of this University-cum-Battleground was a likely candidate for the ex-host; Silas seemed a haven for the Investiture of this planet. Quite which planet this was was a little more unclear. As for the new vessel, he was leading the invasion.  
  
Ah. Over there. That one's not like the rest. She might be useful.  
  
He strode over and tapped her on the shoulder.  
  
Roaring and baring her fangs, the creature presented a monstrous appearance. Hoid weathered the gale. He'd seen worse. He'd done worse.  
  
"WHAT THE _*BOOOOOOM*_ DO YOU WANT?!?!"  
  
"I can help you save her."  
  
Her face was guarded but he saw the spark of hope. It'll do.  
  
"Give her this bead of metal. Make her swallow it and then this vial of pewter dust. Her body will know to burn it. It'll heal her, and in the process turn hr into the most powerful Mistborn this backwater has ever seen."  
  
"Not so fast, A-hole. What's the metal for? Why does she swallow it? And what's a Mistborn?"  
  
"It makes her Mistborn. She will have the capacity to use metals to control the world around her, Pewter makes you physically enhanced including healing. Mistborn can burn all 32 metals, each granting a different power.   
  
You want her to live or not?"  
  
At this point he could have asked the creature to kill itself and he wouldn't be surprised to see it agree. It was obvious this human meant a great deal to her.  


"Fine. Give it to her."  


Hoid placed the bead into the small girl's mouth and poured a small amount of ale from his flagon, holding her nose shut so her reflex would make her drink. She coughed hollowly, close to unconsciousness.  
  
"Now the dust. Pour it all in, make her swallow." He watched as the vampire - yes, that's what she was! It'd been so many thousands of years since he saw one- obeyed, a glimmer of faint hope beginning to glow in her. That certainly was an interesting aura she had. He noted the deep red streaks, the black withered edges, the soft yellow in her chest. Could that last be her love for this girl? He would be able to extract an extraordinary penance from her.

 

* * *

 

The stranger stood up, seemingly more interested in a strange tree Mother - Innana- had planted hundred of years ago.

Laura's breathing suddenly grew steadier and deeper. Maybe the kook was able to back it up. Her body suddenly stiffened, and Carmilla hung still in eternity, hoping against hope that the Gods would give her this one thing a second time. Their eyes met.

"Carm? Why are you glowing?"

Laura reached out for her vampire, and yanked her down into an embrace that was crushing in both physical and emotional senses. Carmilla noticed that Laura was apparently now stronger than she was. All this from eating metal? She'd seen some weird stuff, but if it saved Laura she'd deal with the consequences later.  
  
Not much later, of course.  


* * *

Hoid returned his gaze to the new Mistborn squeezing the afterlife out of the vampire.

 

"As for your payment, I require only two small things. First, a fruit bearing branch from this tree. I believe you are technically the owner of this Academy, your "mother" having left it to you despite the appointment of a new Dean. Your permission would be immensely helpful."  
  
"Sure, whatever, what's the second thing?"  
  
"Your blood. Not all of it. Just a pint or two will do nicely."  
  
This demand, and it clearly was one, was met with more hostility. But the vampire relented.  
  
"Let's go find a nurse, cupcake. I want them to take a look at you, and they can draw my blood for this freak."   
  
He nodded acceptance. Delayed gratification was underrated, in his own infinitely wise opinion. His opinion being infinitely wise was also his own opinion. A nice self-contained little loop, that one was. But he had business to attend to with a dragon, and they don't like waiting. He could tarry a short while for this opportunity; the risk was well worth the payoff if it worked.

* * *

She had almost said let's go find Science Ginger. The regret and loss was tempered with the fire of testing Laura's newfound power.  
  
They traded once more, two more pints in exchange for knowledge of what Laura's new abilities could do and how they worked. A small handwritten tome with the title  ** _Ars Arcanum_** contained an index of each metal Hoid knew of and how Laura could burn them. Tin, for example, sharpened her senses. Steel allowed her to push outwardly on ferrous materials, Iron to pull on them. She could use this to fly, given anchor points to push and pull on. A huge grin split out on her face at the thought and she couldn't wait to try.  
  
 Zinc and Brass allowed her to influence the emotions of those around her; to enhance diminish them, respectively. There were even two that let her speed up or slow down time in a bubble around her.

 

In short, Laura was a minor God. But she had to consume metal flakes to use these powers, and if they ran out she couldn't do anything until she ingested more.   
  
"Hay Carm." She swigged a pewter and tin mixture, pewter to make her run faster and tin so she didn't do anything to herself running into a tree at such a speed she couldn't see. "Wanna race?" Hoid told her most Allomancers, as people who could burn a single metal were called - Mistborn were exceedingly rare, wherever he was from- did not drink their metals in hot chocolate. Most Allomancers were missing out.

"Please. I can run like 300 miles an hour. What kind of a stupid name is Mistborn anyway? There's not even any mist."

The paperweight definitely flew across the room on its own, with remarkable accuracy for an inanimate object.

 

* * *

 

Having tested it on a lesser Roshar denizen first, Hoid injected himself with the precious elixir he'd so cunningly obtained. It took the whole supply, but he was confident. As the darkness overtook him, Hoid grinned. His new fangs extended for the first time. Let Khriss mock him now!  
  
He returned once more to that world, to study the strange tree. As the night mist rolled in, he saw the girl floating high over the wreckage of a tank, her vampire gazing up with the most sappy expression of love. Revolting. This planet was far too boring if that's all they did with it.


End file.
